The Delphi Agenda (32 page)

“Thank you, History Channel.”

Traffic was light and few people were out shopping. Most were trying to escape into any place that promised conditioned air.

They passed Alain, seated behind the wheel of a car parked under a tree in the lot across the road. He was studiously reading
Le Monde
. The headline announced the worst
canicule
in many years, with afternoon temperatures approaching 40 degrees Centigrade.

There was no sign of the van from the Rue Delambre.

They crossed the vast and nearly empty plaza to gaze up at the gothic west façade. Gray stone and the rose window over the main entrance hinted at cool serenity. The three huge doors promised to open onto succor, healing. Above all the basilica promised relief from the heat. The church had been restored in the nineteenth century after the Revolution had damaged it and emptied the tombs. It was once again home to such royal bones as could be found and returned to the necropolis inside.

Lisa shielded her eyes from the sun so she could see the sculpture above the entrance. It was surprisingly benign for a Last Judgment and only hinted at the other side of darkness. “Where do you think they are?” she murmured.

“He’s military, very precise,” Steve replied. “He’ll plan carefully, but with tourists and police around I don’t think they’ll try anything violent here. I think they want to get us to trust them.”

“That’ll be the day.”

They were doing their best to imitate a couple of tourists, and their conversation was covered by the international blend of others around them, but they were both tense and jittery.

“Don’t act too interested,” Steve suggested, stopping in front of a poster advertising the St. Denis Music Festival. “The Augustine’s valuable, sure, and part of your inheritance so of course you’d like it back, but not that important. Maybe you’d be willing to pay something for it, yada yada yada, but it’s not
that
important. Let’s see what they want.”

“They don’t want money, Steve. They’re true believers.”

“I know. But if they think you believe they’re only after money it might keep them off balance. As far as we know, they believe you’re only Foix’s heir.”

“What about Mirepoix? They already know I’m more. That’s why they attacked us.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean they know you’re the Pythia. You were meeting with members of Foix’s entourage, after all, to learn about his estate.”

“They burned it down, Steve. They know.”

He gave up. “All right, perhaps, but I think the fire was unintentional. If you pretend innocence we can at least find out what they’re after. If they don’t yet know the book is the key, they might tip their hand. If they do know….”

“If they do know they won’t fall for it. What happens if they call our bluff?”

“We walk away. They want to finish us as much as we want to finish them. Without the Founding Document it’s a standoff. As long as it exists, they can’t be sure Foix was the only Pythos. Maybe the Founding Document set up a parallel Pythos somewhere else.”

“Come on.”

He laughed. “Why not? If we let that slip, they’d go crazy. Whatever happens, Augustine’s the bait and one way or another we’ll know what for soon enough.”

“All right,” she agreed. “They want the Founding Document and if they think we can lead them to it, we’re safe until they have it.”

He agreed. “Reasonably safe.”

“I don’t think I like the sound of that.”

“Neither do I.”

The basilica echoed with footsteps and muffled conversation. Despite the small clusters of visitors spotted along the sides, the space had an empty feel. Metal fencing blocked off the vast central aisle, which was carpeted in blue and filled with chairs for the music festival. Though only the sides aisles were open to the public, the exterior’s promise of serenity was fulfilled. Stained glass windows lining both sides just under the ceiling sent multicolored light flickering along the soaring columns, capitals and vaults of the nave. The windows above the choir behind the altar at the far end glowed pearl and rose and a faint aroma of sandalwood drifted on the cool air. Lisa and Steve smiled happily at each other.

They bought tickets to the necropolis at the counter outside and for some time they wandered among the monuments, pausing to examine the sculptures over the elaborate tomb of François I and his wife Claude just inside.

A short flight of steps led up to the raised portion of the necropolis and down the other side of the altar, where, just before two o’clock they found the Henri III monument. The twisted red column was pressed against the barrier and they couldn’t get close. The large urn on top supposedly contained the murdered king’s heart.

Steve said, “They won’t need to buy tickets, so probably they’ll come through the barrier on this side.

“I’m sure you’re right,” she agreed. “No sign of them yet, though. And there it is again.”

“There what is again?”

“The helix, like the Camondo Stair.”

“It’s just a spiral, a support for Henri’s heart,” he said. “Don’t look for symbolism.”

“They picked it, the nun and the monk.”

“They picked Chantilly first.”

“That was a diversion they knew we would never accept. No, Steve, they meant us to come here. They picked a memorial shaped like a helix. Everything means something.”

“Henri III was assassinated by a fanatical monk, that’s true. But it wasn’t over DNA.”

“Don’t tell me, was the killer a Dominican, by any chance?”

“He was. And after the news got out the assassin’s picture was placed on altars all over Paris. Some believed the king’s death was God’s greatest act since the Incarnation.”

“Ah. And you tell me not to look for symbolism.”

They pretended to examine the column. Behind them an overweight woman followed by two sullen teenagers and a round-faced man with a thin comb-over gathered in front of the tomb of François I.

Lisa bent down. “Look at this.”

Steve whistled. “I don’t believe it.”

A Phi inside a Delta was scratched on the side of the column. “The Delphi Agenda.”

He was looking straight into Lisa’s eyes just as the father snapped a picture of his family. The flash turned them into a momentary grouping of incandescent cadavers.

Lisa blinked away the vision. “They’re here,” she whispered. Steve nodded and drifted away to examine a cluster of monuments near the north wall.

The nun had the slightest hesitation in the muted pad and a louder thump of her walk, and there they were, the monk and his nun coming through an opening in the barrier. A guard swung it closed behind them.

Defago, scowling darkly, followed with one hand resting on her back. It was a gesture that was both familiar, even affectionate, and curiously paternal. Sister Teresa carried the dark pigskin leather Augustine. Her lenses jaundiced the points of her cheeks when they caught a stray ray of sunshine pouring in from the south.

The nun broke into a broad smile at Lisa. “So there you are,” she rasped. The Texas twang was even more pronounced than it had been on the telephone.

“Yes,” Lisa said.

The light dimmed, as if a cloud had passed overhead, though that wasn’t possible: a heat wave had begun and clouds were nowhere in the empty sky outside.

So, Lisa thought, the darkness was inside her mind. She couldn’t help but see that despite its façade of good cheer the smile on the face a few feet away was cold and bleak. It seemed to radiate despair and hopelessness like the rotating beam of a lighthouse. Whoever looked at it would be lured onto the rocks, to shipwreck and death. This was the face of evil.

Lisa had to shake away the feeling. This woman before her was a nun, a religious, a true believer. She may be ruthless and violent, but she was not some satanic minion come to carry off her soul. She was as American as Lisa herself, and as human, made of the same flesh, blood and bone. There was nothing supernatural about her.

Besides, she had suffered. What violence had caused that odd distortion to the side of her face? What had happened to disturb her gait? Who was she?

Lisa tried to return the smile, but from the inside her expression felt ghoulish and false. This woman had killed Raimond and probably Rossignol. She was an implacable enemy. There was no escaping that fact. This woman seemed frail and damaged, but she was the killer of the only man (until now, she thought) Lisa had allowed herself to love. The nun might deserve compassion, but Lisa could not fall into the trap of empathy.

So she said simply, “I see you brought the book.”

The nun seemed to awake from a trance. “Ah, yes.” She lifted it. Her hands, encased in gray gloves, caressed the binding. The smile had frozen in place. She opened the book to show Lisa the title page:
De civitate dei
.

“That’s it,” Lisa said, reaching out.

The nun let the book fall to her side. “Not so fast. It doesn’t come without a price.”

Lisa had dropped her hand. “Of course not.” She kept her voice carefully neutral.

The monk, one hand in his jacket pocket, was scowling. Lisa saw again the drooping of the lower lid on one side, the beginnings of a deep scar running down under the beard. “We need something,” he growled. “A gesture of good faith.”

“Good faith?” Lisa asked. Her astonishment was only partially feigned. There was nothing good about
their
faith. She glanced at the spiral column of Henri III. It was dark red, a pillar of drying blood.

The nun’s smile grew, if anything, sunnier, broader, and friendlier, and far more pitiless. She saw where Lisa was looking and lifted her eyebrows. “One of the great enemies of the church.”

“He was murdered.”

“Not murdered, stopped. Sometimes extreme measures are necessary. You know that, surely, by now.”

“Henri of Navarre continued his policies of tolerance.”

“And was eliminated in his turn.”

Lisa gave up. “What is it you want?”

“I think you know,” Defago said.

“No, I don’t. I’ve inherited an apartment in the Sixth Arrondissement and a few old books. They seem to come with a great deal of trouble.”

She looked through the barrier at the deep blue carpeting in the aisle and noticed idly that the chairs faced the entrance, away from the altar. Tonight there was a performance of the Mozart
Requiem
. Somehow that seemed appropriate.

“Look,” she continued, looking once more at the nun. “I’m a simple person. I lead a simple life. I read old papyrus, parchment, simple, ordinary documents about people’s lives, history. That’s what I care about. Augustine was an important thinker from the fourth century, the period I study.
The City of God
is an important book. I’m a scholar. I don’t know what gesture of good faith I could possibly give you.” She spread her hands.

Sister Teresa cut off a bark of laughter.

“You’re more than a scholar,” Defago said with quiet menace. “Far, far more.”

For the first time since waking this morning Lisa felt a thrill of fear. “I don’t know what you mean.” Her mind was racing, calculating angles, distances. Would it be possible to make it past the pair to the monument to Louis XII before one of them could produce a gun? There was a large statue of Prudence looking in a mirror on the west corner. Cicero had said Prudence was the knowledge of what is good, what is bad, and what is neutral, and was made up of memory, intelligence, and foresight.

Foresight was that by which something is seen before it has occurred.

She was the Pythia. She should be able to see, but even the immediate future was, if not a complete blank, uncertain at best.

Perhaps this was just paranoia? Surely they wouldn’t do anything violent in such a public place? Surely.

No matter, she needed the book. It was why she was here. Directions to the Founding Document were in it, and it had answers to her questions.

“What do you want?” she repeated.

“You really don’t know?” The nun seemed genuinely surprised.

“No.”

“Why, we want you, my dear.” The chill of his voice sharpened its edge of menace.

Then Lisa saw Alain coming down the steps behind them and relief flooded through her. Steve was casually approaching from the north. They had the pair bracketed between them.

Were they close enough to stop the nun if she decided to shoot? If Lisa died, it would no longer matter whether the police solved Raimond’s murder or not. The Delphi Agenda would be gone. There was no Pythos to follow her.

This was not acceptable. She must have the Augustine.

I’m not ready
.

She managed to act surprised. “You want me? Why?”

“The Founding Document,” the nun said. Her voice, unlike the monk’s, had grown harsh, the Texas more dense and brutal. “The Church has pursued it for over sixteen hundred years. We
will
have it.” She blinked behind her yellow lenses. “Give it to us.
That
would be a gesture of good faith.”

Then Lisa made a mistake. “Why would I? You killed Raimond!” The words had escaped before she could stop them and she couldn’t take them back.

Sister Teresa drew in a breath. “Unfortunate,” she said, but she didn’t seem at all unhappy. She meant unfortunate for Lisa. Her gun appeared like a magic trick.

Defago squeezed the nun’s shoulder and a cloud passed swiftly over her face. “We need her,” he said softly.

“We can find the document ourselves!” Sister Teresa tapped the book with her free hand. “With or without her. With is better, yes, but without will work. It may take longer, but it will work.” She lifted the gun.

Alain was almost there.

Just then the family with the camera walked between Lisa and the statue of Prudence. The two boys jostled one another, uninterested in what their parents were looking at. The father lagged behind, reading aloud from his guidebook. “That’s the monument to Henri III. It says here he liberalized policy toward the Protestants and was stabbed in the stomach by a fanatical monk.”

The older boy got interested then. “
Stabbed
? Cool.”

Then his younger brother pointed at Sister Teresa and said in a very loud voice, “She’s got a gun!”